


hangout at the gallows

by apophoenix



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Everything Hurts, F/F, alternate title: a useless lesbian a functional alcoholic and an angel walk into a bar, angst is the appetizer and the entree, gang's all here in some capacity, religious imagery sprinkled throughout like cilantro, the dessert is a surprise, typical tomfoolery and sapphic shenanigans, wayhaught but it hurts, wynhaught but it hurts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-11-02 10:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20721086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apophoenix/pseuds/apophoenix
Summary: “Her better judgement died the moment she agreed to raiding a semi-abandoned bar teeming with revenants, and its coffin was laid to rest with her sobriety: stupidly, dishonorably, and on a seventh shot of whisky.It was a damn good tombstone etching for an Earp, who Nicole was afraid she was becoming by association alone, but not her.”Dolls dies and everyone doubts everything they thought they knew, but a revenant with a penchant for dredging up deep-seated doubt and a perpetually drunk Wynonna work tirelessly to prevent Nicole from ever believing in herself again.





	hangout at the gallows

**Author's Note:**

> Well, folks, here it is: my first foray into fic after a temporary (and self-imposed) retirement. As such, doubt is the honorary demon of the hour. And what better way to explore doubt than to extrapolate its existence into fic?
> 
> (Some would say therapy. They would be right. But who’s to say this isn’t therapy? Checkmate.)
> 
> This one got away from me a bit. It was only meant to be a one-shot, then a three-parter, and now it is likely going to be a five-parter with each chapter exploring a day in this long, hellish week Nicole Haught has to endure. It is, for better or worse, rather existential, but I suppose that is to be expected in a universe with a town called Purgatory. It is all a means to an end.
> 
> If you’re into reluctant soon-to-be-sisters-in-law working through shared trauma in the worst ways imaginable, filling in the blanks for a necessary Nicole Haught backstory by taking a line of dialogue from an episode and running wild with it, a couple of soulmates doubting whether they are worthy of being a soulmate, and so much religious imagery I ought to be plagiarizing every sacred text ever, then this one’s for you.
> 
> If not, there’s drinking and doubt in spades. And alliteration.
> 
> (Title taken from Father John Misty’s song of the same name.)

**Thursday.**

When Nicole started at the Purgatory Sheriff Department, Nedley warned her about bar fights first, everything else second. 

“A bar fight in Purgatory is like a wildfire in California: so common it hardly makes the morning news,” he said, sighing and adjusting his grip on his duty belt. It’s a habit of his, one Wynonna claims Nicole adopted from him, going so far as to mimic her stance as she follows her around the station. “Usually it’s nothing, but every now and again a window breaks or someone gets stabbed. Use your better judgement.”

Her better judgement died the moment she agreed to raiding a semi-abandoned bar teeming with revenants, and its coffin was laid to rest with her sobriety: stupidly, dishonorably, and on a seventh shot of whiskey.

It was a damn good tombstone etching for an Earp, who Nicole was afraid she was becoming by association alone, but not her. 

The bar fight that followed was inevitable regardless of if Nicole could stand upright or not though.

Then again it was more or less her fault that Wynonna decked Timmy Two-Time in the jaw—_ hard_, both of them reeling backward in hurt from the force of the blow—after they had drank their combined body weight in the alcohol Wynonna brought to their impromptu stakeout.

“Boys, as much as I’d love to stay and chat … ” Wynonna had started, smiling so wide her dimples, at the angle Nicole watched her through nebulous eyesight, appeared less angelic and more devilish, “ … My time is not nearly as expendable as yours, so you’re going to tell me where dear Abigail is and you’re going to tell me _ now _.”

“I’m not telling you shit,” Two-Time had spat at Wynonna, shoving an accusatory finger behind her at Nicole, who simply blinked until his one appendage was no longer a hundred blurry appendages like some unfortunate human Cerberus or a nuclear fallout mutation. “I’m not telling you shit. Not with Deputy _ Dyke _around, that is.”

Then, before Nicole could even think to be offended, Two-Time fell to the ground, bleeding, Wynonna broke an empty whiskey bottle against the side of a table, and a mob of drunken, delirious revenants stampeded their way all to the sound of hail pelting the roof above and “Ace of Spades” by Motörhead blaring from the jukebox.

Still, something told Nicole Nedley had seen stranger than this, which was a comforting last thought to have before she lost consciousness. 

xx

A not-so-comforting last thought was that if she didn’t die tonight, Waverly Earp would ensure she died soon—and by her own hand.

xx

**Monday, one long-ass week earlier.**

Deputy Sheriff Nicole Haught has a case. A real case, a case with evidence that requires a crime scene investigation team, a case that warrants her involvement beyond as a liaison for the natural and the supernatural, a _ real _ case. Nedley passed it off to Nicole with a grunt after they returned from processing the scene together, his lack of explanation explanation enough. The prospect of leading an investigation into what supernatural mechanism makes Purgatory tick like an invisible timebomb would have thrilled her any other day. Deputy Sheriff Nicole Haught has a case, finally, but it only serves to remind her of the absence no one wants to acknowledge.

It’s been a week, maybe more. Grief has a funny way of affecting time, and in a town like Purgatory, where time is neither sacred nor secure, it takes a concerted effort to stay linear. 

Wynonna Earp, who stumbled into the station ten minutes late to the BBD meeting Nicole called, has never walked straight a day in her life.

She seems to be in all places at once, limbs flailing as aimlessly as her words and their intentions. It makes Nicole dizzy, watching Wynonna swirl around and around like a hurricane, indiscriminate in its destruction. So too does it Nedley, who stares at her from behind the window to his office, a cup of coffee in his hand and exhaustion in his eyes.

“So, what’s cooking in the seedy underbelly of Purgatory today?” Wynonna eventually settles—on Nicole’s desk of all places, inadvertently disturbing all the papers atop it as soon as her ass comes in contact with the surface. Peacemaker juts precariously from its holster on Wynonna’s hip, making its presence known much like its owner does hers: with little regard for anyone else in close proximity. “A banshee revenant who only screams in B flat? A magic compass that only points to the sinkhole that is probably a pit to hell by the abandoned Safeway? A man in a Fedora with a wallet chain and way too many pictures of animated women on his phone?”

Everyone waits on her, waits _ for _her, to say something they want to hear. Doc and Wynonna are poised, prepared to attack, foaming at the mouth for something to sink their teeth into. Sadness has given way to sheer carnality, their propensity for destruction (Doc with dynamite, Wynonna with anything she can get her hands on whilst drunk) heightened to a degree that Nicole fears will cause a forest fire. Jeremy copes by not coping at all, choosing instead to spend his time at the station working or piecing together Optimug Prime with Gorilla Glue.

And Waverly saves the day, as she has time and again.

“At least three people went missing last week,” she says, and suddenly all eyes are on her and the sparse board she and Waverly stand before, only three photos tacked onto its surface. “Which wouldn’t be unusual for Purgatory if not for the fact that they were all last seen alive at St. Thomas’s Church for Wayward Youth.”

“You sure they weren’t just raptured?” Wynonna smiles and kicks her dangling legs back and forth. “_Waywardly_.”

“I fail to see how this is cause for our concern,” Doc says, inciting a chorus of subdued agreement from Wynonna and Jeremy.

Waverly had initially thought the same. She was who Nicole called first. Naturally.

“I mean, I agree that it’s a little weird that three people went missing around the same area, but nothing about that is _ technically _supernatural,” she had said after Nicole explained to her the brunt details of the case over the phone. She sounded tired, as though just roused from sleep. Nicole wished it were so. She had hardly slept in weeks, tossing and turning and tormenting herself with a tirade of memories Nicole could only try and will away with gentle touches or sweet nothings. Nightmares plagued Nicole, not often Waverly, but Dolls dying did a number on them all, even those that death had visited well before they were even acquainted with life. “Why did Nedley hand it off to you?”

“Said he had a hunch.” Nicole shrugged, scratching her fingernail against a blank legal pad on her desk, her latest notes visible on the fresh page from how hard she pressed her pen as she wrote. The page now sits in the waste basket under her desk, torn and crumpled. Sometimes she sheds her notes, for confidentiality, and sometimes she tears them apart with her bare hands, for therapy. “Also, our missing people were found dead this morning seven kilometers from the church in what looks like a ritual sacrifice.”

“We’ll be there in ten.”

And in ten they were there, Waverly with a weary smile and box of donuts Wynonna had somehow already raided.

“I said they were last seen _ alive _at St. Thomas’s Church for Wayward Youth,” Waverly continues, pivoting on her heel and proceeding to tack more photos onto the board. She does so slowly, with purpose, painstakingly shoving blue push-pins into photos of bodies aligned in a row, bloodied limbs barely touching. “This is them as of this morning.”

Jeremy swallows audibly. “They are very much … _ not _alive.”

“Well, that much is obvious, indeed.” Doc stands and sidles his way to the board, hands on his hips, lips pursed so his mustache tickles the underside of his nose. Everyday he appears more and more like a caricature of a cowboy, but it comforts Nicole the same way Waverly refusing to swear (most of the time) does. Some things never change, even when it seems everything has. “By golly, that’s a lot of blood.”

“That blood has been sent to the crime lab for analysis,” Nicole interjects. “Their fingerprints didn’t flag a match in any database and there was no form of ID on any of the bodies. It’ll take a while for the results to come back though, so until then, they’re John, Joe, and Jane Doe.”

“So they’re nobodies,” Wynonna deadpans, staring at the photos on the board with such a casual indifference Nicole wonders whether whiskey diluted her ability to care.

“They’re victims.”

“Big whoop.” Wynonna kicks off the desk, heel hitting the front and causing a vibration that knocks the framed photo Nicole has of Waverly onto its front. “Some people died in a creepy, cult-y way. Happens all the time. Why are they so important that _ they _get an investigation, huh?”

Nicole sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. “We investigate all crimes, Wynonna.”

Wynonna turns on her quick, so quick that Nicole takes a step back, nearly colliding with their makeshift murder board. “How would you know what crimes we investigate, huh? How would you know anything? How would you know what goes on in this godforsaken town you, for some stupid reason, decided to stake roots in?”

There it is.

“Hey,” Waverly starts, but Nicole stops her with a shake of her head, and for a moment, allows a humorless smile.

There it is. 

It’s still not her jurisdiction, not her place. Never was, never will be. Dolls died and made no one his successor. Just stabbed a hole into their collective soul, likely expecting someone would suture it. None of them are capable though. Not Wynonna, who uses alcohol not to clean her wounds but to numb them. Not Waverly, who pretends the bleeding is not constant. Not Doc, who was only a poor parody of a doctor in his day. Not Nicole, who is an outsider, on the sidelines, watching and waiting for a day that will never come.

Yet, and maybe in spite of it all, she does not back down. 

They remain at a standstill, outlaws of the wild west, staring down invisible barrels and speaking their truth in calculated blinks. It would be the calm before the storm if the storm was a spectator. 

As it were, Wynonna has never existed on the sidelines of a battle.

“I don’t know what to do either, Wynonna,” Nicole finally tries, speaking through a sigh as tired as their conversation. It seems to relieve some of the tension in the room. Even Jeremy, who had taken refuge in a corner of the office as far away from the conflict as possible, eases back into their space. “I don’t know what to do, but I know what we _ have _ to do. You know what we have to do too.”

There’s more, a lot more. More about being a police officer, about swearing to serve and protect, about choosing to be one of the good guys in a world where it’s easier to be a mediocre guy and convince yourself it doesn’t make you a bad guy. More about suffering the same loss, about suffering all sorts of loss, about enduring enough suffering to ensure suffering happens to no one else. There’s more to be said, so much more than any of them are willing to divulge because they only talk when it sounds like sparing and someone can win after beating the other to a bloody pulp with their words.

Neither of them are ready for more, though, and Wynonna does not ask for it.

“Take me to church.”

xx 

Everything about the church is foreboding. From the weeping statue of the Virgin Mary at the entrance, hands piously pressed together and eyes staring upwards into the heavens painted on the ceiling, to the stained glass behind the altar, the art as sanctimonious as the golden crown of thorns on display that Wynonna takes and places on her head as soon as they enter, it instills in her a sense of dread she remembers from a dream or a past life.

“Stop touching things,” Nicole hisses, swatting at the air near Wynonna, who ignores her, choosing instead to rest the crown crookedly on her head.

“_Stop touching things_,” she mocks, rolling her eyes before conceding and replacing the crown. “You’re no fun.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not here for fun.”

“Then what _ are _we here for?”

Not even Nicole knows. Wynonna left in a frenzy, chasing a trail of carnage like a rabid bloodhound, untamed and impulsive, and Nicole followed like a retired bloodhood, tired and unwilling; Jeremy and Waverly chose to stay behind, do some more research into their victims and St. Thomas’s Church for Wayward Youth (“Which, like, I _ swear _did not exist a week ago,” Waverly claimed as she scoured what archives on the area she could quickly find online before resorting to the local library. “Also, what the hell does ‘wayward youth’ even mean in this context?”); Doc refused to be within walking distance of a church.

“There I do not belong,” he said, the gravel in his tone only barely offset by the shame. 

“And you think we do?” Wynonna vaguely gestured, indicating everyone and no one in her vicinity. Nicole avoided being included, stepping backward and away from condemnation at the wild hand of an Earp.

“More so than me,” was all Doc managed.

It felt like déjà vu, but before she could dwell on what that meant, they were off.

Thankfully Nicole doesn’t have to awkwardly stammer her way through a half-assed answer because someone speaks on her behalf.

“Salvation, I’d hope,” comes a voice from behind them, and before Nicole can think, she pivots, body shielding Wynonna, hand to her holster.

Wynonna shuffles behind Nicole but makes no effort to escape the barrier she created with her body. Rather she holds onto her forearm, tightly, and if Nicole wasn’t currently attempting to assess all the contingencies in their midst, she’d find the gesture oddly endearing.

The threat, in the end, is only a reverend.

“Oh my _ god_,” Wynonna says through an exaggerated sigh, all the tension Nicole feels on her forearm coming undone with her words.

Nicole imagines even without the clerical collar, he would look like a holy man. Sharp haircut and a clean face; light blue eyes hidden behind thin, round glasses; hands clasped at his front; a wise, yet somehow boyish grin; neither imposing nor timid.

Terrifying, then, in every way.

“No, no. Just his humble servant.”

Wynonna wrinkles her nose. “Somehow that’s worse.”

Nicole almost nudges Wynonna, but the reverend laughs, long and loud, the sound reverberating cleanly off the walls of the church. It takes little effort for her to imagine the intensity of a sermon led by the man, the acoustics at his service in more ways than one. Nicole clears her throat and stands straighter, removing her hand from her holster and relaxing her hands at her side. Wynonna does not even attempt to mask her suspicion, only moving to stand beside Nicole instead of behind her.

“You aren’t the first to be so skeptical,” the reverend says, unperturbed. “You certainly won’t be the last.”

Wynonna snorts. “If what happened to Peter, Paul, and Mary happens to skeptics then no, thanks.”

“Which is why we’re here,” Nicole starts before Wynonna can interject with another insult this reverend seems unwilling to take offense to, his smile still intact despite her attacks. It ought to be calming, his demeanor, but Nicole has to continually resist the urge to shudder. “If you don’t mind, we would like to ask you a few questions, Father … uh.”

“Oh, how uncouth of me.” The reverend unclasps his hands to extend one to Nicole, who accepts it. Wynonna shoves her hands in her pockets. “Matthaeus Brottman.”

“Deputy Sheriff Haught.” Nicole nods, gestures to Wynonna. “My partner, Wynonna.

The reverend, Matthaeus, glances at Wynonna, his smile somehow even more sangfroid than before. “Earp, is it?”

“No, just a woman with her exact same height, build, and trauma,” Wynonna says through a smile that ought to break her teeth.

It ought to break Nicole, but somehow she musters on.

“Father Matthaeus,” she starts whilst procuring the crime scene photos from her field notebook and offering them to the reverend. “We apologize for arriving without notice, but we’re investigating a— ”

“Ah yes, those murders.” Father Matthaeus adjusts his glasses and sighs, decidedly avoiding even so much as glancing at the photos. “Tragic what happened, no?”

Or she tries to, at least.

“ … yes, Father. We were wondering if you had any information you think may be useful as we proceed forward in our investigation. We have reason to believe the victims were associated with your— ”

“Indeed they were,” he answers before Nicole can pose the question, sighing before pivoting on his heel and beginning to walk further into the church. “Do you know why this church was founded, Officer Haught?”

Nicole spares Wynonna a knowing look and she rolls her eyes as they begin to follow Father Matthaeus.

“I mean, clearly, it was to worship,” he continues, still walking ever so slowly down the aisle toward the altar. It’s a humble church, small and sparsely decorated. What decorations it does boast, though, are messianic to say the least. From the statues of saints to the murals of martyrs, it is a living, breathing testament to why idolatry is considered bad—or, at the very least, creepy. “But it was more than that. Because what good was anyone doing preaching to believers?”

They wait for the reverend to answer his own question.

“Do you know where doubters go?” he asks suddenly, stopping and turning. One of his hands comes to rest on the back of a pew. A single gold band on his finger catches a beam of sunlight filtering through the transparent ceiling and then Nicole’s eye, momentarily blinding her. 

“Hell?” Wynonna asks, trying but failing to add the edge that makes all her sentences a sardonic slap to the face, as Nicole blinks spots from her vision.

Then it dawns on her.

“Purgatory,” she answers, sounding so small and so far away that she wonders whether she said anything at all.

The reverend smiles, and he has too many teeth it seems, though Nicole knows that makes no sense.

“Very good, Officer Haught. Sunday school?”

“Lots of schools,” Nicole says, curt, and then before Father Matthaeus can say anything, and Nicole can sense he wants to, his unwavering stare penetrating through any professional facade she was holding like her badge, “What can you tell us about the victims, Father?”

“Not much, I’m afraid.” Father Matthaeus returns to pacing the pews, but Wynonna leans her ass against one, and Nicole has no choice but to stand somewhere in the middle of their schism. “They were like everyone else who comes here. Scared, confused, unsure— ”

“Wayward?” Wynonna offers with a smirk.

The reverend stops, turns, and mimics her smirk with one of his own. “Precisely.”

Another sudden shudder prompts Nicole to intervene—_again _.

“Do you happen to know their names?” She tries to show him the photos again, but he waves them away, shaking his head. “No?”

“I am not in the business of knowing more than I have to. As such, I was not acquainted with their names, only their spirits.”

Wynonna groans behind her.

“Do you know if they had any … enemies, perhaps?”

“Enemies? Dear, no.” Father Matthaeus takes a step back, then opens his arms wide. “Officer Haught, take a look around you.”

“I have taken several,” Nicole mutters through a forced smile.

“This is a safe space. No enemies, only friends.”

“Oh Jesus.” Wynonna pushes herself off the pew, then takes a single stride toward Father Matthaeus, who barely flinches at their close proximity. Nicole, on the other hand, is about ready to convulse. “Look, _ Father_, it may just be a coincidence, or a miracle, or divine intervention, but we’ve got dead folks a hop, skip, and a jump away from your church, the last place they were seen alive, and we just want to know whether or not we should have you arrested or burned at the stake.”

Silence in a church is deafening. This Nicole knows from experience. Every church she ever stepped in had its own way about warping sound—and she stepped in _ many_, she and her parents shuffling from town to town with little purpose, searching for something she was never and will never be privy to. It was nothing more than a rouse, a way for them to be together for an hour, to wash away the sins of their neglect in some semblance of a nuclear family, though as Nicole got older, she much preferred to worship a pack of Belmonts than her parents and their apathetic attempts at normalcy.

Still, she could hear the sound of nothing from outside a church just as loud as if she was inside. That is what she hears now, Father Matthaeus commanding the silence that looms over them like she knows he commands a sermon.

“I sense a lot of … _ conflict _ brewing inside you, Miss Earp,” Father Matthaeus eventually says, his smile never faltering. “Doubt, in particular.”

“The only doubt you’re sensing is my doubt that you’re at all innocent,” Wynonna spits. It comes across strong enough, but Nicole knows Father Matthaeus has touched a nerve; her hands are less steady, fingers twitching with rage. Peacemaker may as well be glowing in its holster.

“You too, Deputy Haught.” And suddenly, the tables have turned, the reverend now watching Nicole, who straightens instinctually. “You’re uncomfortable.”

Her hands come to her belt, her shoulders square back, and her voice lowers in pitch. “It would be irresponsible of me to be anything but uncomfortable with three innocents murdered.”

“Who says they’re innocent?”

Nicole sucks on her teeth, now unable to hide her annoyance. “With all due respect, Father Matthaeus, it is not my job to judge the dead.”

“Yes, well, we all know whose job that is,” Father Matthaeus says, so matter-of-fact it doesn’t occur to Nicole until much later she ought to have argued on someone else’s behalf. “Well, Deputy, I’m sorry I couldn’t be of much help, but please. Feel free to come by off-duty.”

Then, with a smile that is more of a sneer, he turns to Wynonna. “You too, Miss Earp.”

The air around them seems significantly warmer when he walks away.

xx

“Well, that got us nowhere,” Wynonna says Nicole reverses onto the road leading back to town, the church steadily falling from her line of sight. “We should’ve waited, gone in guns-ablazin’ with ammo in the form of blackmail or Waverly incognito as a sexy nun.”

“That was the plan,” Nicole says as calmly as she can, hands gripping the steering wheel so tight her skin starts to look translucent. 

“Wait, blackmail or Waverly as a sexy nun?” Wynonna turns to Nicole with wide eyes. “Does Waverly already have a sexy nun costume? What kind of kinky, sacrilegious shit are you into, Haught?”

Patience Nicole has in spades, but she can still smell the whiskey wafting Wynonna in nauseating waves and it ruins any semblance of sanity that may have remained after their talk with Father Matthaeus. She pulls on the wheel sharply and brings the cruiser to a stop on the side of the road. Before Wynonna can say anything, she whirls on her with a suddenness not even she knew she was capable of.

“The plan was to go about this investigation the proper way, but as per usual, you abandoned protocol and did things your own way.”

Wynonna, surprisingly, looks surprised. She recovers quickly, though, stoking the flames of a fight Nicole never wanted to have. “Hey, I didn’t ask you to follow me, okay?”

“So what? You were just going to go it alone? Go on pure instinct and alcohol?” Wynonna almost nods, but Nicole cuts her off with a morose laugh. “Do you have any idea how to do any of this, Wynonna?”

“If by ‘any of this’ you mean revenants, then yeah, I do. Kind of like my life’s only purpose, actually. What’s yours?”

“It’s keeping Purgatory safe.”

Wynonna snorts, rolling her eyes. “Oh, that’s rich. How many revenants have you sent back to hell again?”

“I am as much a part of this team as— ”

“As Dolls?”

It’s low, but then Wynonna has never been known to fight fair. Nicole knows this, knows nothing she says whilst under the influence should be taken personally, but she can’t recall a time when she spoke to Wynonna sober. 

“Yes.” She swallows, steels herself against the hurt threatening to show in her shaky timbre. “I am as much a part of this team as Dolls.”

And Nicole is not one to doubt herself, but when Wynonna does not even dignify her words with a response, instead choosing to ignore Nicole and her protests as she shoves open the passenger and steps into the cold, she begins to think she was never even a benchwarmer.

xx 

“What kind of a reverend says that?”

Jeremy, who has been intently listening to Nicole explain their earlier excursion to the office, adjusts his ass, which rests on the edge of Nicole’s desk beside a mug of cold coffee, a stack of paperwork she has yet to complete, and a small pot in which a cactus tries to sprout. Nicole read online somewhere that cactuses were the cats of the plant world: independent, prosaic, able to withstand long periods of fortuitous neglect. Yet all her cactus has in common with a feline is its propensity to silently judge her while she works.

“The kind of reverend who thinks doubters are destined to eternity in purgatory.” Nicole pauses. “The concept, not … here.”

Jeremy snorts. “God, you’d think he’d have a little more sympathy seeing as his people were massacred by some scary, hellish cult … _ oh_.”

Nicole moves her mug and her paperwork away from Jeremy’s ass. The cactus stays tucked in its corner. It looks like it wants to die, and suddenly, so does Jeremy.

“I didn’t— ”

“It’s not the Cult of Bulshar,” Nicole says before Jeremy can continue, avoiding his and Waverly’s eye as best she can, scribbling nonsense onto a notepad.

“Then what is it?”

“I … I don’t know.” Nicole sighs, bringing her hand to her temple and massaging there. Strewn across her desk are photographs of the sparse evidence she managed to procure from the scene, a sketch of the scene, and a list of suspects that currently only boasts the name of the individual who reported the victims missing a week ago.

All attempts to contact them were, like everything else in this investigation, unsuccessful.

“I don’t know anything.”

Suddenly Waverly is beside her, a hand coming to rest at her neck. She scratches lightly, nails just barely tracing the nape of her neck. Nicole turns, butting her head into her torso and staying there, eyes closed for the first time in what feels like years—or at least for the first time in the three hours since she abandoned Wynonna, watching her profile shrink in her mirror as she trudged through the snow back into town.

Guilt had settled like a paperweight in her gut since. For not demanding Wynonna at least accompany her to the station and then for lying to Waverly about her whereabouts. Worry had almost permanently etched itself onto her face in the weeks since Dolls died, and Nicole would not carve another into her skin, choosing instead to smooth what was there with false assurances, however wrong it was.

They were both culpable anyway, she and Wynonna. Sinners even, according to Father Matthaeus. Nicole shuddered at the thought, and Waverly pressed a kiss to the crown of her head in response.

“We don’t have to have it all figured out right now,” Waverly says softly, fingers never stilling, following an aimless path along the back of her uniform. “We don’t have to have all the answers yet.”

“Mm,” is all Nicole can trust herself to say, a hand coming to rest on the small of Waverly’s back, keeping her close. 

“But if it’s any consolation,” she says, prompting Nicole to look at her with a gentle tug on her collar. When Nicole does, Waverly is watching her with tired, tender eyes, a smile hidden somewhere behind them and the worry painting them dark underneath. “We have some.”

xx

St. Thomas’s Church for Wayward Youth, as it turns out, did exist a week ago.

“In fact,” Waverly starts as she drops an open book onto Nicole’s desk, speaking over her shoulder in that lilted tone Nicole has come to associate with turbulent trains of thought and neverending tangents, “according to this article, it has existed for almost two centuries.”

“Impressive,” Nicole drawls with a nod, straining to see the photocopied text before her through all the ancient dust the book dispersed from within its binding. 

“It was initially established in 1878,” Waverly continues, guiding Nicole to the source of her information, index finger trailing a path across the page, “by a man named Thomas R. Tattenbaum.”

“St. Thomas,” Jeremy says, and Nicole starts, so consumed by her closeness to Waverly, enthralled with her enthusiasm and the way her breath casually ghosts the back of her neck as she speaks, that she forgot he was there.

“Only for so long.” Waverly flips the page and points to another photocopied article. “In 1882, he and his wife were killed in cold blood. Shot dead, point-black, behind a small shack somewhere on the edge of the Ghost River Triangle.”

Nicole scans the page. Then, finding nothing, she turns to Waverly, who seems to be trying to stare through the page and into a world that no longer exists. “By who?”

“Don’t know. They never caught the assailant.”

Waverly swiftly closes the book, shoving it aside, and, once again, ruining the appearance of togetherness Nicole was trying to maintain. She replaces it with a manila folder labeled with a sticky note that reads “St. Thomas’s Church for Wayward Youth, 1878-Present” in bold, capital letters. 

“But, see, that was just a brief retelling of the early history of Purgatory through all the newspaper clippings historians have gathered from the era,” Waverly explains, that lilt returning and filling Nicole with a newfound sense of awe. “It’s hardly comprehensive, and frankly, a little colonialist too. Like, are we really going to act like Purgatory was built solely on the backs of white outlaws?”

When neither Nicole nor Jeremy say anything, staring at Waverly in confusion and anticipation, she sighs opens the folder. In it are more photocopies of newspaper articles, but these are crude, printed on standard paper and littered with scribblings in a scrawl Nicole is familiar with, the same handwriting etched onto notes she sometimes finds in her lunch.

“It’s neat, don’t get me wrong,” Waverly says, spreading the pages across the length of the desk, the margins overlapping. “But if you want the nitty, gritty details of Purgatory’s past, you have to get down and dirty with the primary source material.”

“Which means?” Nicole looks to Waverly, who seems to be biting back a smile.

“Which means I found almost every article ever written about St. Thomas’s Church for Wayward Youth.” She allows the smile for only a moment before she pauses with a long sigh, blowing a strand of hair from where it had fallen across her face in the midst of her arranging her documents. “Let me tell you: it is about as cursed as my family.”

xx

They spend another hour at the station, listening to Waverly detail all the deaths associated, in some way, with the church. Nicole takes some notes, but mostly she just watches Waverly pace about the office, speaking animatedly about a drowning or a failed exorcism or a shootout, only occasionally stopping to take a sip of the coffee Nicole made for her or to eat a handful of trail mix Jeremy bought from the vending machine outside. All of her stories are interspersed with some exaggerated reading of the article from which she gathered her information, her tone taking on a haughty air whenever she reads a quote from the reverend of the time. They all sound like Father Matthaeus, self-righteous and condescending, and after awhile, Nicole starts to drift.

Like always, she finds herself in the forest. It’s the only constant in her life, the return to her first flirtation with evil. Everywhere she runs she sees fire and smoke, hears screaming and crying. Somehow she wills her legs to continue their fruitless journey toward safety, pushing past the dense greenery around her and escaping into an expanse of nothing.

The world goes black.

Then she is at the crime scene again, squatting beside the bodies of three unidentified victims and noting their condition in her field notebook before motioning for another officer to assist. The snow is melting and she has to preserve the scene before it ceases to exist, taking with it into oblivion any evidence she could use to start solving this crime. The officer comes quickly enough, but he fails to take the path she already made, upsetting the scene and, inadvertently, toeing snow onto the bodies with his boots.

“Christ, watch it, would you?”

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to take the Lord’s name in vain?”

Nicole immediately stands. The crime scene dissolves into nothing as she takes in the sight of Dolls, strong and sure and _ alive _, watching her with only a hint of bemusement. Too many thoughts assault her at once, none of them enough, and so she lets the only words she can bear to part with escape. “No. Was never at the mercy of a nun and a ruler myself.”

Dolls makes a noise that Nicole thinks is supposed to be a laugh. “A nun and ruler taught me more discipline than a drill instructor and a rifle ever did.”

Nicole nods, unsure of what to say. Most of the time she was unsure of what to say around Dolls, his presence alone a conundrum she couldn’t be bothered to try and decipher. They spoke better without speaking at all, which is what made them such a good team, or so Nedley thought.

“You could learn a lot from him,” Nedley had once said, the same afternoon Dolls had threatened to charge Nicole with treason for reasons she was not yet privy to.

They stared from his office window into the street at Dolls standing post by her police cruiser, his hands folded at his front, permanently poised like a statue or a seasoned K-9 unit German Shepherd. An inconspicuous tumbleweed rolled past. Dolls reacted like it had tried to rob him at gunpoint, hand to his holster, sunglasses slipping off the bridge of his nose and onto the sidewalk as he tried to escape the imminent threat of dry shrubbery. 

Nedley cleared his throat and brought his mug, the one Chrissy bought him that says “World’s Okayest Dad,” to his lips. It was his fourth cup of coffee that day, and based on the tired sigh he released at the sight of Dolls now investigating the tumbleweed with the government pen he carried around in his breast pocket like a corporate attorney, he was aiming to break his standing record of five. “Maybe he could learn a lot from you too.”

“Where are we?” Nicole finally asks, turning away from the nothingness to fully look at Dolls. He remains motionless much like the trees surrounding them, rooted to the ground, and then she notices they are in the woods again. “How are you here?”

When Dolls smiles at her like he never did when he was alive, she remembers he hates the woods.

“Welcome to hell, Officer Haught.”

When she wakes it’s to someone whispering her name. She comes to slowly, then all at once, gasping and searching for something, hands grabbing at the empty air around her until she comes in contact with _ someone_. Then Waverly is there, kneeled before her, her hands gripping hers, her face etched with the worry Nicole had done so well to keep at bay.

“You’re here. You’re safe,” she hears Waverly say over and over again, a mantra that does not cease until Nicole releases a long, shaky breath and begins to relax in her seat. “There you go, there it is. You’re okay, baby. You’re okay.”

“I swear I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Nicole says because that is, apparently, the most pressing concern at the moment. 

Waverly smiles, softly, before bringing a hand to Nicole’s cheek and stroking her thumb back and forth, back and forth, easing Nicole back to reality. “I know you didn’t.

“Well, um. Where were we?” Nicole wills her heart to return to a normal rate as she sits upright. Her hand does not let go of Waverly’s, though, her firm grip only barely loosening when Waverly moves to stand beside her. “The, uh. Strange deaths, right? I think there’s something there, yeah? Something supernatural?”

“Come on, baby. Everyone’s gone home already.” Nicole looks around, notices the office is without Jeremy, and then checks her watch. It reads 1703 for only a moment before Waverly covers her wrist with her hand, prompting Nicole to finally fully look at her. “Let’s go home.”

She almost asks if she can bring Dolls with her.

xx

A Bible rests on a bookshelf somewhere in her living room, a conch shell somewhere in her bedroom, and a small goose totem somewhere in a box, all untouched by holy hands for so long sanctity seems as gone as a god. They are mirrors Nicole hates looking into, their surfaces speckled with stains that reek of neglect and abandonment. Sometimes, though, when she stumbles upon them in a new location as if some spirit moved it, she stares at them and wonders what it would be like to hold something holy without withdrawing at the thought. 

With an angel in her arms now, writhing slowly under the weight of Nicole and her unabashed worship, all she wants to do is stay.

They separate for only a second, catching their breath, and then they come together again, Waverly humming along to the song on the record player—Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire” from a vintage vinyl pressing of _ Born In The U.S.A._, which Nedley said she could have as she helped him clean his garage a week prior—or the soft sounds they make, a symphony of sighs like a solemn church choir.

This—slowly making out on a couch to ‘80s rock—is the beginning of the end for them. (With the way Waverly breaks away every now and again to whisper sweet nothings in Nicole’s ear—often a tender “baby” but sometimes an ardent “I could kiss you forever” that only serves to stir Nicole further—the end of the end is nigh.) How they navigated here after hours of nothing, content simply to be together, only makes sense. 

“We should do this more often,” Waverly says against Nicole’s lips, each syllable punctuated by a kiss, and Nicole knows what she means, but she plays coy, pulling away to quirk a brow in faux confusion. “What? You don’t think so?”

The pout Waverly puts on—lips wet and red from Nicole, not the new lipstick she said she wanted to test with a wink—almost does her in, but she resists the temptation to confess, years of biting her tongue until it bled before her parents suddenly worth it if it means she can tease Waverly.

“I think I’d be more willing if you didn’t make fun of my dancing.”

It was Nicole’s doing, the dancing. They had abandoned the dishes after dinner in favor of lounging on the couch and listening to the staticky analog, Nicole still reeling from her fight with Wynonna, her nightmare with Dolls, and everything before and after. Waverly knew nothing beyond her simply needing a distraction and was content to oblige whatever odd request Nicole had, which tonight was singing “Cover Me” to a woman until she had her melting into nothing. That she did, no longer a child mirroring The Boss but an adult beguiling her girlfriend to indulge, beckoning her onto her feet with her serenade.

“You are so lucky you’re cute,” Waverly had managed to say in the midst of her laughter, allowing Nicole to twirl her, falling into her arms as they tumbled into furniture. 

“You’re cute,” Nicole had said, pressing a kiss to Waverly’s hair as she swayed them through the house, sidestepping Calamity Jane, who walked alongside them, like a shadow or a grumpy guardian angel.

“You ought to stick to your day job.”

“Are you trying to tell me I’m a bad dancer, Waverly Earp?”

“I’m trying to tell you that, if nothing else, you’re a good cop, Nicole Haught.”

No one forgave Nicole for being herself, but begging for absolution seems second to begging for the blessing that is Waverly Earp. 

Waverly bestows one after another now, leaving a trail of kisses along her jaw that Nicole blindly follows, eyes closed. “You can’t be the best at everything, baby.”

Nicole hums, settling further into Waverly. “No? Says who?”

“Says me.” Waverly hooks a leg around Nicole’s hip, holding her still, secure. “Besides, you’re the best at _ so _ many other, _ better _things.”

Before Nicole can ask, playing coy clearly working to her advantage, Waverly lures her into a searing kiss, stealing all the words on her tongue with her own. One of Nicole’s hands, once holding her weight above Waverly, moves to her bare thigh, hiking it higher, every catch of Waverly’s breath like a prayer that surges her forward, further toward the promise of something—

“_Better_, huh?” Nicole smirks at the slight whimper Waverly breathes against her lips as she shifts her leg, every move she makes purposeful, the promise to her prayer. 

“The best,” Waverly whispers, strained, and Nicole can feel her lashes flutter against her cheek as she kisses the little constellations of freckles on her face, like the fragile wings of a butterfly.

Nothing about Waverly is fragile though. Her arms anchor Nicole against her, her hold almost too strong for Nicole to escape from. Heaven has to take her if she arrives shackled to an angel, and Nicole always wanted to go to heaven.

Hell has other plans though.

Just as Waverly starts to tug at her shirt, someone knocks on the door. The record stopped long ago, bathing them in a silence Nicole prays banishes the demon at her door. Like all her other prayers, though, it goes unanswered and another series of knocks assault the door and all the virtuous patience Nicole works so hard to sustain.

“No one’s home!” Nicole shouts through the noise. Waverly, now still beneath her, giggles and Nicole buries her face in her neck with a gentle groan. “If it’s Wynonna, I swear to— ”

Waverly shakes her head and touches a finger to Nicole’s lips, suppressing a laugh when Nicole makes to bite it. “Shh, be nice.” 

“I’m _ trying _ — ” A knock. “To be _ nice _ — ” A second knock. “To _ you_.” A third knock, this time with a kick that startles Calamity Jane from her perch atop the stairs, a strangled mewl the only noise that escapes her before she bolts into an adjoining room.

Waverly tucks a strand of hair behind Nicole’s ear, humming as though the cacophony of clamoring against the door is nothing more than an accompanying arrangement to their afternoon together. “Mm, another time.”

“It’s always another time though.” Nicole falls into her neck again, and Waverly continues to stroke her hair.

“We did spend about three hours together uninterrupted.”

Nicole lifts her head. “Has that ever happened before?”

“No, our personal best is an hour and forty one minutes.” 

“Not counting— ”

“Yes, not counting _ that_,” Waverly giggles, unabashedly smiling against Nicole’s lips as she uses her gentle grip on her hair to pull her closer. “_Obviously_.”

Before Waverly can entice her any further, something hits the door that is decidedly not a hand or a foot, causing them both to jerk in surprise.

"Open the damn door, Haught!”

They say speak of the devil and he shall appear, but Wynonna Earp, likely the devil incarnate, does not need an invitation.

“It’s your sister,” Nicole says rather pointlessly, Waverly more than acquainted with the sound of Wynonna ruining a moment. “I’m going to tell her to go away.”

Before Waverly can say anything, Nicole clears her throat, turns away from Waverly, and yells, “Go away, Wynonna!”

Wynonna snorts from behind the door. “I’m not here for you, Deputy Doofus. I'm here for my baby sister—that is if you haven’t already _ defiled _her.”

“I was well on my way,” Nicole mumbles, earning an unearnest shove in the shoulder from Waverly. “She isn’t here!”

“I know she’s in there, Haught. The sooner you get off Waverly, the sooner you _ get off _ Waverly. _ Capisce_?”

In one swift motion, Nicole stands and pulls Waverly upright. Their hands linger only for a second, the way Waverly watches her through hooded lids almost undoing the little will she has left, and then Nicole strides toward the door with a grunt. As soon as she unlocks and turns the knob, Wynonna barrels inside, bypassing cardinal decency for utmost destruction, a speciality of hers Nicole has yet to acquire a taste for. 

“Come in, Wynonna,” Nicole grumbles as she shuts the door, opting to leave it unlocked lest Wynonna suddenly decides she should grace them with an exit the same as she did an entrance. “Make yourself at home.”

Wynonna has done just that, rounding the corner to stand beside Waverly, who now adjusts her disheveled cardigan around her shoulders and awaits whatever news Wynonna is intent on delivering now.

“What’s wrong?” Her tone is soft, as soft as it was when she was kissing Nicole, spilling all her thoughts onto her lips in a single breath Nicole followed like a commandment. “Wynonna?”

Wynonna, who has been pacing her floor in boots that Nicole can hear scuffing her wood, abruptly stops ahead of Waverly as if taken from a trance. “Do you think Dolls … do you think he’s in a good place now?” At the blank stare Waverly gives, only able to worry her bottom lip between her teeth, she sighs and rolls her eyes. “Like, okay, I know none of us will ever truly know what comes after this, but I literally send demons to eternal damnation with a sentient shotgun in a place called Purgatory, so there _ has _to be more.” Then, in a small voice, all her usual veracity vanishing with each word she utters, she whispers, “Do you think Dolls … do you think he’s in hell?”

“Wynonna.” Waverly steps toward her, hands coming to rest on her forearms. “Where is this coming from?”

Nicole shifts on her feet, still standing by the door, suddenly awash with a familiar shame. Voyeurism never thrilled her. It only reminded her of where she didn’t belong, stuck behind a window made of impenetrable glass, watching and waiting for a chance to cross the threshold into a world she was so often shunned from.

“Doc and I were— ”

“What the _ hell _did John Henry say to you?”

Whatever veracity Wynonna lacked Waverly proffers like a sacrifice, teeth bared and coated with a venom neither Nicole nor Wynonna, who answers in blinks like some Morse code, were prepared for. 

“John Henry—_Doc _didn’t say anything.” Wynonna sighs, head hung and eyes closed. It’s easily the most vulnerable Nicole has seen her since the wake despite the leather jacket she dons as proudly as Doc does his hat and Peacemaker concealed beneath it. Knowing this does nothing for Nicole though, disdain long ago giving way to a guilt she cannot shake.

“What does that mean?”

“It means Doc was unable to atone for all the dastardly deeds he committed and so he went to hell in the universe I never existed in and what if that’s where Dolls went too because … I don’t know, I can just … _ see _Dolls suffering like a sick fucking snuff film every time I send another revenant to their eternal damnation and I thought I could drown my demons in bullets but surprise! They’re all wearing bulletproof scuba gear.”

No one says anything for awhile. All Nicole can hear aside from their breathing is Calamity Jane scratching her post upstairs. Then Waverly takes a tentative step toward her sister, her hold having come loose along with Wynonna’s words. 

“Wynonna.”

“No, no. I don’t need … _ that_.” Wynonna pauses, eyes looking past Waverly toward the entryway to Nicole’s kitchen. “I need a drink.”

“Wynonna, you—Wynonna!”

In what seems like a single stride, Wynonna travels from the living room to the kitchen. Waverly trails after, mumbling under her breath something about being the most mature, but stops short of crossing the threshold to shoot Nicole an apologetic smile.

“Go,” Nicole mouths, nodding toward the kitchen while somehow suppressing a grimace at the sound of glass breaking. 

Alas, none of the Earps ever listen to Nicole. Waverly walks to her instead and wraps her arms around Nicole, burying her face in her shirt as Nicole welcomes her with a smile and kiss to her hair. It would seem Nicole never listens to Nicole either. 

“I’ll be back for you,” she says before escaping the embrace, trying to suppress a smirk that Nicole in any other circumstance would kiss to fruition.

“I’ll be here.”

Waverly blows her a kiss as she walks backwards into the kitchen, wiggling her fingers in farewell, and Nicole thinks if heaven allowed her entry, she would only come to the playful beckon of an angel that looks a lot like Waverly Earp. 

xx 

The devil, coincidentally, looks a lot like Wynonna Earp.

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it this far, 1. thank you and 2. thank you. And if you like or comment or even just nod your head and say "nice" in a really subdued way, then 3. thank you.
> 
> Parts II-V are already in the works.
> 
> In the meantime catch me shouting into the void @yeehawpolice on Twitter.


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